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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23256877">A Thorn from Any Other Stem</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm'>Drag0nst0rm</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Twisted Branches [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different Parents, Angst with a Happy Ending, Celebrian is a Feanorian, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 05:47:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,249</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23256877</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In another world, she might have sailed west after she was rescued.</p><p>In this one, she doesn't dare to.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Celebrían &amp; Maglor | Makalaurë, Celebrían/Elrond Peredhel, Finduilas &amp; Celebrian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Twisted Branches [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1671526</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>207</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I don't own the Silmarillion.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Shh,” Celebrian murmurs as soothingly as she can, “shh. It’ll be over soon.”</p><p>It will be, one way or another. She has seen more than enough wounds in the past two and a half ages to be more than sure of that.</p><p>Finduilas’s broken sobs continue without pause, and things will be over all the quicker if one of the orcs is drawn from their revels by the fire by the sound.</p><p>“Shh,” she whispers again, her voice so smooth and steady that her own tears will almost certainly pass unnoticed.</p><p>The pain has grown too great not to cry, but at least she has long ages practice in making sure no one else can hear it.</p><p> </p><p>(She had thought - they had all thought - that it was safe now. Safe enough at least to visit the last of her cousins who still remembered Valinor as long as she took an escort. Safe enough not to deny Finduilas when she begged to be allowed to return with Celebrian so that she might see Imladris.</p><p>She had thought they were safe during the Long Peace, too. She should have remembered how that had ended.)</p><p> </p><p>She knows exactly one sentence of the dark speech the orcs use, and it is probably impossibly archaic by this point, but she spits it out with all the strength she has left when the orcs begin circling them again, and at least some of the original meaning must still be preserved because she is instantly the center of their rage.</p><p>Finduilas screams, but they ignore her, mostly, so she has done that much for her cousin at least.</p><p> </p><p>(She hadn’t been supposed to be in the healing tent at all, not yet. Her father had told her that her uncle needed rest, but if her uncle could see all his brothers at once, and great-uncle Nolo, <em>and</em> whoever it was that had been shouting, then surely he could see her.</p><p>He’s asleep when she slips in under the spot where the folds of the tent are loose in the back. She tiptoes up to him and has to swallow hard when she sees how different he looks.</p><p>She takes another step forward, and even that slight sound is apparently too much because Maedhros jerks awake, shouting something that grates against her ears as he lashes out against invisible enemies.</p><p>She freezes. </p><p>People rush into the tent all around her, hurrying to soothe, to fix the stitches he has just ripped, and she is still frozen.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she whispers when she is finally jostled out of the tent. She’s not sure anyone notices.)</p><p>(Only a day later, she is escorted in at her uncle’s own request. He smiles at her and is almost his old self, and she might believe it if the memory of the terror in his eyes from the day before wasn’t still so fresh.)</p><p>(It’s years before she works up the courage to ask him just what the words he’d shouted had meant.)</p><p> </p><p>The pain doesn’t stop, but there comes a point where there stops being more of it.</p><p>Just wave after wave of the old.</p><p>One way or another, it will be over soon.</p><p> </p><p>She is better now, she supposes. </p><p>She is better off, certainly; she is in a room that is cool and clean and filled with soft things and not in a cave where -</p><p>She is better off. When she moves now, she doesn’t hurt at all. </p><p>But without the pain to slice through it, it is hard sometimes to fight her way out of the fog she had tried to cling to, towards the end. </p><p>But there is something bothering her, and she doesn’t realize what it is until the little girl comes and crawls into the bed with her, shaking with her sobs.</p><p>Arwen, she thinks, and she holds onto her as tightly as she dares, and she holds onto the thought even tighter.</p><p>Finduilas had been crying, and she had been so afraid of what it might mean when she stopped.</p><p>She holds onto the thought, and she manages to force it out when Elrond -</p><p>
  <em>So tired, so gaunt, those circles under his eyes mean something, something bad, but she likes seeing him, because he had done something in those early days that had made all the pain go away -</em>
</p><p>- When Elrond comes again.</p><p>“Where is she?”</p><p>The words come out hoarse and cracked, and Elrond jumps, reaching for her hesitantly. “Celebrian?”</p><p>“Where is she?” she repeats. “She was . . . she was crying. Then she stopped.”</p><p>Elrond’s eyes flick to Arwen and his eyes are impossibly sad, but he knows what she means because he says, very softly, “Finduilas is being taken to the Havens. Her mother is coming to try to heal her, but if that fails - “</p><p><em>When</em> that fails, she thinks he means. “Then she will sail.”</p><p>Sail.</p><p>
  <em>The sea had raged, and she had thought it would swallow them whole, and it had been so dark, and she could have sworn she saw blood -</em>
</p><p>“Celebrian. Do you - do you want - ?”</p><p>“No.” She grabs his hand, desperate. “You can’t let her - It’s not safe - “</p><p>He kneels beside her bed in an instant. “She arrived there safely,” he promises. “All of Cirdan’s people are around her - they’ll send their best sailors for the passage - “</p><p>“Three ships,” she insists. Three ships had gone down in those storms, and then - “Ten ships,” she corrects because she thinks of all those they had sent out from Sirion, and - “He never saw Idril, Finarfin said he <em>never saw Idril - “</em></p><p>Elrond has gone very pale. “It’s different now,” he promises. “We can sail. The Valar promised we could sail.”</p><p>Her strength wanes, and she lets her desperate grip fall. <em>“You</em> can sail,” she corrects. Finduilas can sail.</p><p>But Maedhros could not, and Gwindor could not, and Finrod and Celebrimbor could not have, had they lived.</p><p>She can not.</p><p>She must simply decide whether to follow the example of her uncle or her cousin instead.</p><p> </p><p>Elrond sends out as many messengers as he can spare.</p><p>He has searched for Maglor before, but not since his marriage has he done so with such urgency, and he had hoped then that Maglor had thrown his bloodstained prize away. He prays for the opposite now. </p><p>He had failed then; he must not now.</p><p>Celebrian is fast fading beyond the abilities of his art. If Celebrian must sail - and more and more he fears that it might come to that - then Elrond will be ready with a way.</p><p>It would not be the first time that the Valar had made an exception for the sake of a marvelous light.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When she opens her eyes, gold light is playing across her skin. <em>Real</em> gold light, not the pale imitation her mind briefly tries to compare it to before flinging the memories aside.</p><p>It feels warm against her skin, the comforting heat sinking right into her bones and easing the ache. She can’t remember why they ache, but it can’t have been anything too bad. She can hear her uncle singing to her, and so nothing can be as bad as all that.</p><p>“Ada?” she murmurs because surely her father must be somewhere nearby if she’s injured.</p><p>“He’ll be here soon,” Maglor whispers, and something in his voice sounds strange, but she can’t place it.</p><p>He starts singing again, and she falls asleep to the comforting sounds of the familiar lullaby and to the feeling of her uncle gently brushing through her hair.</p><p> </p><p>(“I won’t be able to heal her,” Maglor warns, and it feels more like a confession. He can’t bear to look at Elrond as he says it. “Not like I could in Tirion. Even after all this time - “ He cuts himself off. There is no such thing as enough time. He knows that.</p><p>“You’ve tried?” Elrond asks, and he doesn’t sound accusatory at all.</p><p>Maglor risks a quick look at him. “On Men, mostly. After shipwrecks. Things like that.” </p><p>He can help, sometimes, in more mundane ways.</p><p>Mostly all he can do is sit with them while they die.</p><p>Mostly it’s men because mostly it’s sailors, but he remembers after Numenor there had been children.</p><p>So many children.</p><p>There had been a dark haired little boy that looked so much like Elros that he couldn’t bear not to try, but there was too much blood on his hands for his soul to lend itself to healing. </p><p>He had thought of that boy when Elladan and Elrohir had found him and told him what their mother needed. He had thought of the boulder he had rolled over the shore to mark the grave.</p><p>Elrond grips his arm and draws him back to the present. “I don’t need you to heal her,” he says firmly. “I can handle her physical needs well enough. I need you to anchor her, to stop the fading, at least long enough for us to figure out a way to make it safe for her to sail.”</p><p>“I have something that might help,” Maglor says. “On both of those fronts.")</p><p> </p><p>When she wakes again, she is aware enough to realize that she is not in Tirion, and that the golden light isn’t coming from the Trees.</p><p>It’s coming from the Silmaril.</p><p>“Uncle Maglor,” she whispers, and he immediately startles awake from his exhausted slump in the chair someone had kindly placed for him beside the bed.</p><p>“Celebrian,” he breathes, and the emotion that crosses his face is almost too much for her to bear before he puts it away again. “Let me call Elrond for you, he only just left to get - “</p><p>She shakes her head. She wants Elrond there, wants her children there too, wants to see that they are all safe and whole and not somewhere breaking in the dark, but first she needs a moment just to wrap her head around this. </p><p>“You’re here.” It still feels like a dream. She hasn’t seen him since the wedding, and even then, he had managed to be more voice than presence, forever standing just out of reach.</p><p>“I’m here,” he agrees, and he gets up from the chair to kneel closer to the bed so he can take her hand. “Elrond hoped I could … help.”</p><p>He has helped, she feels certain. She feels steadier then she has in - </p><p>Her mind shudders away from the thought, but she clings determinedly on. </p><p>“You’ve helped,” she tells him because it’s important he knows that, but the effort exhausts her, and she slips back into sleep.</p><p> </p><p>When she wakes again, no one is paying the slightest attention to her, possibly because her uncle is standing guard between her and Mithrandir, looking braced for a fight. Elrond’s eyes are flicking between them, tensed to intervene if things escalate, but Mithrandir seems unlikely to strike. The Maia is - not amused. Delighted, maybe, but sad at the same time. The Maia is a little incomprehensible at the best of times; she is certainly not going to attempt it now.</p><p>But he is holding up his hands, staff abandoned against the wall, and saying, “Peace, wanderer. I mean no harm to you and yours.” His eyes flick to the gem. “Nor to your father’s work.” His eyes linger on it for a long moment. “I confess, I had begun to believe the rumors that both it and you were lost to the sea.”</p><p>“No,” Maglor says shortly. “Despite what many might have hoped.”</p><p>“We wanted your opinion on that, actually,” Elrond says quietly, intervening before things can go further. “If she sailed with it, would the Valar accept the voyage?”</p><p>The grief in Mithrandir’s eyes deepens, but his voice is sharp when he turns to Maglor. “Your oath would allow this?”</p><p>“I can hold it long enough for me to send her safely away,” Maglor says. “It will burn, after that, but she’ll be safe across the waters. Nothing else matters.”</p><p>Mithrandir softens. “There is more of the light in you than you have been credited for, Makalaure.” He seems not to notice the way her uncle flinches at the name. “Yes, I think the Valar would accept that offering. I do not, however, think it will be necessary. Will it?” he asks, turning to her.</p><p>All eyes turn to her, and she locks her gaze on Elrond and puts every ounce of her grandfather’s fire into her voice when she says, “I’m staying.”</p><p>She is still so tired, so very, very tired, but Elrond is here, and he has been left behind too many times already, and her children are here, and she will not leave them until she has to.</p><p>And this is what she chose and fought for, over and over again. She will not leave it. Not like this.</p><p>Elrond takes her hand and kneels beside her bed in an instant. “Whatever you want,” he promises.</p><p>“Good,” she says, a little less firmly, because she needs her strength to reach out and capture her uncle’s wrist with her free hand. “You’re staying too.”</p><p>“For as long as you need me,” he tells her.</p><p>She decides it is probably best to wait to tell him that if that is the stance he intends to take after avoiding her for an age of the world, then she expects she will decide she needs him for approximately the rest of forever.</p><p>There is too little left of their family for them to stand away from each other now.</p>
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